Description

Climb up the very soft .12a "Space Neutralizer" to reach the base of the overhanging arete above, or traverse in easily from the left (the start of "Kloof"). Clip the 2 pins hidden back at the base of the chossy dihedral and place a small cam in a horizontal break on the arete (double ropes are useful for making this work without drag). Move slightly down and right to gain bouldery moves that lead up right to a set of fixed wires. One more move past the wires leads to easier terrain and a gear anchor off mid-size cams. Although it looks quite dangerous the fall from the crux (which I tested a few times for good measure) resulted in only a bruised hip, so a ground-up ascent would not be unreasonable. I believe Baldwin applied to have this route bolted but was denied (Rossiter mentions it as the TR line "Extendogap" .12c in his guide) and I assume it has never been lead until now--although in Boulder I could certainly be wrong. Skip Guerin may have done in barefoot in '85? Zach Smith deserves most of the credit for this line as he had the vision to see it as a headpoint and placed the fixed wires just above the crux.

Protection

Two pins and #0 or #00 protect the crux moves. Above that fixed wires protect the climbing [until] easy terrain is reached.

Yo Josh, nice send!!!!! John Baldwin top-roped this line in about '94 or so. I top-roped it with him also and thought it was way hard. He did apply to bolt it but was denied. It's nice to see it get led with-out the bolts. Well done.

I got on this one today... it's hard... really hard. I'm excited to lead it. I think a few more TRs are in order. Maybe 13a. Has anyone climbed this thing since Josh? The guidebook says a hold has broken since the FFA.... My thoughts are this thing has gotten a bit more serious.

I fired this rig on TR today, looks like the crux is very hard if you're not tall. It weighs in at a 12a boulder problem to a ledge to a solid V7 move to sustained techy 11a. You can punch in a bunch of gear at the ledge leaving you with a scary but safe (ish) fall from the crux (20 foot fall 25-30 from the deck). After the crux, you can place a very marginal 000 cam or small nut and run it to the top, definitely a no fall scenario. I will report back after I lead it.

Ok sent... it's probably 12+ but hard and reach. Here is the video if you care:

Nice Work! Cool to see somebody repeat this route, and a nice look back at the days when I was into the Eldo headpoint game. Looking at your video, it looks like the beta I used way back when, so I don't think anything has broken as the guidebook suggests. I've seen a few people toprope this line...Sonnie, Segal, etc...but to my knowledge, I don't know of anybody else that's led it. Of course in the Boulder area this is always a very sketchy assumption! Also Segal's route Smart Went Crazy is basically a harder version of this route, climbing the rail that leads right. Check out "Stupid Fly" if you haven't already. Super good, with two boulder problems instead of just one! Congrats again!

Thanks for the props, Josh. I wonder who thought it broke? I felt like that one crux move was stout for 12c, so I assumed one of those holds crumbled or broke, but who knows? You're right about wondering who had/has climbed it, in Boulder there are so many secret crushers!